Public-finance

The general, and supportable, thesis is that moral considerations require a certain amount of intervention in the economy and our personal lives in order to correct the amoral influence of free markets. Nothing that you won't find in cocktail party conversations anywhere within fifty miles of an ocean. This book does not do a very good job of the demonstration.

A synopsis of Isbister's discussion of equality should do to show exactly how vapid his arguments are. After examining some justifications for equality as a moral postulate (including Rawls), he denies that any are viable. Since he wants to base his analysis of justice (particularly income inequality) on equality, freedom, and efficiency, obviously he needs to give us a reason why we should. Citing the Declaration of Independence, he decides that he can simply assume equality is good, and go on from there.

Now, he has to decide which sort of equality to use, and so sets up a false dichotomy: should it be equality of opportunity or equality of outcome? The most obvious third choice (equality under the law) is discussed later in a different context (freedom), but what he does with these two is hilarious. He looks at what he wants to call fair, and stipulates that someone who works harder should receive more; therefore he eschews the later equality and prefers the former, which are obviously contradictory in this context. However, he notes, that if outcomes are different for one generation, then opportunities are different for the next; therefore the one implies the other. Rather than note that this is a real problem to which a real solution is needed (such as only using equality of outcomes), he just calls this an "indeterminacy" and decides to apply both principles to income distributions.

How does he do this? He decides that having a 1:1, or equal, distribution of incomes is neither possible nor good, so there must be a larger one. What is it? 8:1; specifically, $20,000 to $160,000. Why? "This is the roughest and most intuitive of conclusions." He guessed. The distribution should also be Gaussian, he says, even though he admits that supervisors should usually be paid more than their subordinates, which would normally imply something closer to a gamma distribution.
About seventy percent of us already fall into the category given (including children under eighteen, college students and retired people and not including all redistributive programs). Why we should put any effort into modifying the income distribution is not given.

His account of freedom is similarly insipid (using the kind of analysis of liberty that the Soviets used as a rationalization), and his criticisms of Nozick are inept. He tells us that it is not just for us to willingly give a quarter to Wilt Chamberlain to see him play, or at least for him to keep the money, because part of the reason he was so good is that he's so much taller than we.

Isbister also looks at the nature of capitalism, globalization, and the environment with just as much insight.

I wonder whom this book was meant for. It is certainly not a scholarly tome, nor is it introductory. Nowhere does it look like a book meant for history. It's really just the sort of thing that Isbister probably talks about once the vodka martinis start flowing out of the mouths of fountains camouflaged as busts of Marx at the college library; it's a book meant to show his friends how dedicated he is to the cause.

If you're considering this book, I'd suggest leafing through it at the library before buying it to make sure it's your cup of tea.